Multipolarity

Donald Trump took Elon Musk and Jensen Huang to Beijing with him for 48 hours. But rather than the frat boy big weekend of their autistic dreams, the trip turned into a sequel to The Hangover.A dressing down from President Xi on Iran, a few more soybeans flogged, and some Boeings on order: was it worth Jensen's $17 000 an hour time?Meanwhile, the Japanese 10 year bond yield has climbed above the Chinese one. This is something of a sorpasso. As the country struggles to keep its debt load manageable, there's a sense of sag to the economy. Does the Japan of our techno-futurist imaginations now bear the same degree of relation to reality – as the Italy of our Fellini fantasies?Finally – another sorpasso – Mexican birth rates have dipped below those of America for the first time. Problem being, if the Mexicans don't have sex, they can't supply the US with a constant source of surplus labour.US conservatives have long been scornful of European immigration patterns, falling back on the cultural compatibility of their southern neighbours – but unless Pablo and Maria get back in the bedroom, they'll soon be receiving the same rich blend of Africans and Middle Easterners as the EU.Do check out our Substack if you can - https://multipolaritypod.substack.com/

This week: a tale of two audio essays. Philip is going deep dive on the coming oil crisis.He sees a two-wave format emerging. The initial wave - dropping in a month or so, is already baked in. “The oil infrastructure is like a body,” he says. “if the heart stops pumping, the cells stop oxygenating, after a while they begin to die off.” They're "living chemical engineering systems" that need constant throughput. Shutdowns normally require years of planning and cost hundreds of millions. This will entail real damage to the global oil infrastructure, but eventually reparable. And then a second wave - if things persist into the autumn. Which will mean an inflationary depression. Real declines in global living standards.That future portends a potential schism – a genuine multipolar moment, as the Strait is hived off to genuine Iranian control, under the aegis of Russia and China. His message is simple: “Enjoy the beginning of summer…” While you still can. Meanwhile, Andrew has turned his attention towards Broken Britain. With the Prime Minister now holed below the waterline, is there still any potential universe in which Britain avoids a big bond market shock? What he's calling The Madame Butterfly Effect explains how Jeffrey Epstein could crash the UK economy. During the period in which Mandelson left politics (after 2010), a new form of political operator emerged. What Matt Stoller calls 'entrepreneurial brokers'. An American gold mining company wishes to secure a stake in a new deposit in Siberia. A major British political donor wants to raise capital for his son's hedge fund. An Italian politician might enjoy access to a luxury yacht twice a year.Mandelson found himself 'fixing things'.In the Unipolar world order, he says, nations specialised. Britain's specialisation was financial services and openness to trade, which in turn allowed it to piggyback on US foreign policy.This, however, led to deindustrialisation and to associated policies such as openness to high immigration.But that system of integration, of the entrepreneurial brokers running things, is now capsizing, thanks to Epstein. The Labour Left will likely take charge after Starmer's resignation. They have no brokers. And no links into the real world of high level market traders who might smooth their passage.Another cheery week. Do check out our Substack if you can - https://multipolaritypod.substack.com/

Remember Olaf Scholz? Just about? Remember when he sunk to the lowest opinion poll rating in German political history? Well the good news for anonymous hopeless former Chancellors is that the next beige technocrat in charge of Germany has just beaten his record. Plunging to 89% dissatisfied – with only 11% satisfied. Even with Macron as the most unpopular President ever, Starmer the least popular Prime Minister, Merz is more unpopular still. Our lead question this week is very simple: what the flaming fuck is going on in Germany? Meanwhile, more news just in on Europe's cordless bungee ride: UK bond yields have spiked again. To 5.3% - the highest rate since 1998. They can't go any higher – right? In the four years since the Truss contagion blew up the markets by hitting 5% and toppled the government, it's a good thing the UK Treasury used that period to stop running massive deficits… right? Finally, the global oil market is beginning to resemble Argentina under Kirschner. You've got your official prices; and then your real prices. As reality continues to diverge from the markets, we're asking: who is this mysterious Whale of Hormuz who keeps on fiddling with the international price mechanism? Of course, this being a pay week, you'll need to sign up on Patreon or Substack if you want to hear that bit - only the real heads get to dine on the whole hog. That's easily done - simply go to Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/multipolarity) or Substack (https://multipolaritypod.substack.com/) and sign up. It's 8 or 12 dollars respectively, and you can cancel any time you like….

After weeks of Iran drumbeats - time for something a bit different. George Yeo is the former Foreign Minister of SingaporeEducated at University of Cambridge and later at Harvard Business School, he's a former Brigadier-General in the nation's Air Force, and one of its most distinctive strategic thinkers - a man whose career tracks the rise of modern Asia itself.Yeo served in government for over two decades, holding key portfolios including Trade and Industry.As Singapore's Foreign Minister from 2004 to 2011, he played a central role in shaping the country's global posture.Since leaving frontline politics, Yeo has become a widely followed voice on geopolitics, civilisational identity, and the shifting balance of power in Asia.We wanted to ask him about the view from Singapore.Singaporean diplomats are renowned for their coolheaded, realist approach. They are highly skilled - and they have to be.A unique fragment of the complex geometry of South East Asia, Singapore has to balance its warm relations with the West, its unmatched status as a trading hub, and the rise of the Goliath on its doorstep - China.

The hot question this summer: Can you bring your own jerry can of diesel onto an EasyJet?As all the major airlines begin to cancel flights, bump surcharges, and post losses, the looming fuel crisis is finally hitting landfall - in the skies.Meanwhile, Hungary's Prime Minister elect, Péter Magyar, has decided he wants to unilaterally remove the country's President and the head of the Constitutional Court. Another win for Democracy and the Rule of Law.As his administration takes flesh, Magyar has declared that he will arrest Benjamin Netanyahu – last seen touring Budapest in May – the next time he enters the country. The International Criminal Court wants a word with BiBi, and the new regime is keen to be seen as a responsible global citizen.But what Magyar doesn't seem to know is that this is an EU stalking horse for pulling him back into line, by linking it with another man with a price on his head – Vladimir Putin.Finally, the bot singularity is coming for the markets. Turns out it's not just journalists and email jobbers who are quietly outsourcing their work to LLMs. Market traders are increasingly slopping out on the S&P. For now, this is about capturing delta. But what happens when everyone on the internet is a dog?

Trump blockades a blockade. The world holds its breath: will the Iranians blockade the blockade of the blockade? Are we destined for battleship Tetris piling up in the Gulf? Or is this just one more instance of the real war being the PR one? Then, with his Fidesz party reduced to a rump, what happens when the lynchpin of anti-Brussels energy falls out? The EU threw everything at Orbán, and it has paid off handsomely. Ursula von der Leyen clearly had her speech about moving to qualified majority voting written before the polls closed. Beyond a cost of living election in a landlocked medium-sized country, this is a story about the future of the EU. Apres Viktor, le deluge… IMPORTANT A Note on SubstackYou might already know that we have a Substack, and we're growing it. (multipolaritypod.substack.com)We've run into a small issue, in that lately, a few people have been signing up on Substack, with the intent of getting the premium episodes of the podcast - which have so far been exclusive to Patreon. So we've decided to take the premium podcast to Substack, and bundle it with a new range of articles we're in the process of producing.The deal is this - The Substack will be $12 a month - that will get you the podcast and then various paywalled articles on top. We're not paywalling the Substack yet - all the pieces you can presently read are free of charge - but we have plans to start gating the odd piece. And as we said, we will gate the premium podcast on Substack. Of course, if you're an existing subscriber, you can do whatever you like - Patreon, or Substack. The one gives you the pod only. The other will give you both. Obviously, your price won't change unless you change platforms. So there's no need to do anything.

Annihilation - no more.On Tuesday, the world was saved at five minutes to midnight. For the next two weeks, at least… But while the power plants are safe for now, the tragi-comic spectacle conflict in Iran has poked bigger holes in the global defence-industrial system. No one knows this better than Malcom Kyeyune, the Mad Mullah of Malmö, who is back on the pod to take a victory lap, after predicting much of what was to come in the first week of the war. This comes fresh on the back of his new essay in UnHerd - https://unherd.com/2026/04/the-twilight-of-americas-sky-knights/ - where he compares the US dilemma with the strategy of the Hussites in the earliest Reformation wars.

1973. Beyond the war, we're hacking into the coming implications of the major energy crisis that's brewing - as the last tankers to leave the Gulf trundle into the ports of Europe. From Volkswagen to venture capital, we'll be charting what life looks like with oil at 150 or 200 dollars a barrel. Energy lockdowns. Rationing. Bond crises. All of these are being whispered in the press right now. As much as our leaders dare. But this is still the Ardennes Forest in spring 1940. Eerily quiet. Soon enough, the flamethrowers will burn through the Old Continent, and then begin to ricochet back onto America itself. Will this break up the order we once took for granted? Are we at the end of the US consumption model of economics? Will resource rich Canada end up speared by its bigger brother? We'll be taking a grand view from the sidelines, as we start to figure out how to live through the latest version of the polycrisis - after 2008, after Covid, after Ukraine - this is the next major re-shaping of the world we live in. Of course, this is a premium Multipolarity episode - so you'll have to be on the Patreon list if you want to listen to the full episode. That's easily done - simply go to Patreon and sign up. It's 8 dollars, and you can cancel any time you like….

 Multipolarity Dialogues is a series of interviews that scan the geopolitical horizon. We talk to some of the sharpest analysts, think as an experts about how they see the world beyond the visible edge of the geopolitical.Now, is Iran actually winning this war, or is the US slowly pounding it to bits with its air power? Will there be a land invasion? Could a land invasion even succeed? How are the oil markets gonna react? What are the likely economic consequences of this war? How will it affect the US midterms? All these are questions that are being discussed to death on the super giant gossip chambers that are the mainstream and social media.But what is less discussed is the big picture geopolitical change that is occurring before our eyes. We at Multipolarity already suggested that this war means that Taiwan is a lost cause to the United States. Is that true though? And what would it mean for the overall US strategic posture? Most importantly, what is going to happen in the Middle East, which itself is a theatre of great importance.Nobody in the public sphere has shown a better understanding of the academic literature on these matters than Anusar Farooqui, better known as Policy Tensor (@policytensor). He is a prolific tweeter and essayist on geopolitics and geoeconomics and grand strategy, and for that reason his X account has just exploded with followers in the last three weeks. We had to welcome him back on to the show...

The dog that didn't bark. China is cooling its heels on the war in Iran. As America's entanglement deepens, it's not Sun Tzu they're turning to, but the wit and wisdom of Napoleon Bonaparte: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Meanwhile, even closer to Beijing, US weakness is showing up the true nature of the slow war in the South China Sea. If America can't open the Strait of Hormuz, how can it maintain the Taiwan Strait? Finally, is Bibi booboo? A new wave of rumours has him six feet under, backed by… videos of him looking basically fine. Welcome to the AI hall of mirrors. Where reality buckles under the weight of the slopoverse. The Propaganda War is now 4D, hologrammatic, and features the Kirkbot 3000.

As Iran smoulders, ships burn in Hormuz, and TACO traders search for signal in the thunderous noise, we're celebrating the end of the world in the only way we know how - two audio essays. Philip Pilkington on the economic consequences of the war. And Andrew Collingwood on the political mess we're in.

The Netherlands has its youngest ever Prime Minister. Liberal technocrat Rob Jetten is also openly gay - a big win for diversity. But can the VVD survive in coalition without meaningful agricultural reforms? Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan, wheat futures are up almost nine percent since September. We'll be asking whether transitory commodities inflation in the Stans is the big story we've all been missing. Finally, the little known African country of Bapetikotsweti has signed a memorandum of understanding with Peru. It includes bilateral tariff reductions on soy beans and electric toothbrushes. What does this mean for the flatulence control and dentistry industries in these terriers of the global economy? Only joking… just one story this week… IRANThat's right. We're at war. And The Lads are joined at the podcast frontline by the one and only Malcom Kyeyune. Strap in...

The US State Department advised its citizens in Northern Mexico to ‘shelter in place', as the cartels took their reprisals, following a major Mexican security forces operation against gang kingpin El Mencho - and then another called El Tuli. It's all LOL, until you realise that this is just the start. By targeting the cartels, the US has poked a hornet's nest; And the hornets are on cocaine. Meanwhile - have you paid a US steel tariff in recent months? Was it over 30%? If so, you could be due a refund. Just dial 1-800-WHITE HOUSE to see if you may be eligible. The Supreme Court acknowledged that sorting out the tariffs strike-down would be ‘a complete mess'. But after the mess, the reckoning: deep down, this is a story about the US balance of payments. Finally, Christine Lagarde is stepping down from the ECB. Emmanuel Macron' s Napoleonic pincer movement is that this frees the way for a Lagarde Presidential Run – and stops a National Rally government from appointing its own bank governor in 2028. But with these kinds of cynical machinations now effectively running the European elite, the entire Centrist establishment may be embarking on its Russia Campaign. All of this. Coming up. For premium subscribers. That's right - it's premium week. If you're not a premium subscriber, you can sign up on our new Metternich Tier on Patreon, for eight dollars, pounds or Euros a month. patreon.com/multipolarityFor clarity, we should point out that founder subscribers still on the old Palmerston tier will stay at $5 a month. For anyone else, try it once, you won't regret it. And you can cancel any time. And if you like visual Multipolarity, you can always check us out on Substack, where we're expanding our output with a weekly Multipolarity Briefing every Tuesday. multipolaritypod.substack.com

At the Munich Security Conference, Marco Rubio offered Europe a peace in our time. The Americans sprayed on the charm. But looking between the fine words, it seems like Marco was on his way out the door. Do Europe's friends need to tell her this is a break up speech? Meanwhile, rumours of the destruction of Iran remain premature. We've run the numbers, and it turns out it would take ten per cent of all the Tomahawks in the world to flatten three mullahs and an oil derrick. But with American strike fleets still camped in the Persian Gulf, how does this end? Finally, Hungary was all anyone was talking about backstage at Munich. The Brussels establishment have decided that defeating Orban in his upcoming fourth successive election will bring a massive W in a world drowning in Ls. The polls haven't just tightened - they've actually split. With two sides both predicting victory for their candidate, across a spread of 15 points, what happens when one side wakes up in April to find themselves robbed?

Firas Modad is back for his second turn on the pod.After talking about Neo-Ottomanism last time, he is turning his attention to Iran, and its faltering regime.With rumours of an imminent attack continuing to swirl, what future is there for a post-Khamenei world?What part could be played by the exiled Shah? Is there perhaps a different faction that could take the reins if the mullahs fell?Even then: do Iran's neighbours even want the regime to fall - given that it could unleash an oil rich industrialised state of 80 million into the region's balance of power?Then, talk turns to Somaliland. Recently recognised by Israel, this northern splinter state of Somalia is relatively stable, and hangs on a hinge of the Gulf of Aden, making it a juicy prize for lovers of international shipping lanes. The Emiratis are for it – but Turkey says no.Who will win in this coming tussle between the Gulf monarchies and the neo-sultan Erdogan?

Today we bring you two audio essays from your favourite geo-political podcasters.First up Philip is looking at the recent attempt to short the precious metals market.Perhaps the push to lower the interest rate is not to juice the economy but rather an attempt ultimately stop the Sell America trade?Meanwhile Andrew's shouting from the rooftops "it's right there in the document!".The Donroe Doctrine… Trump wants to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and the evidence has been there the whole time.Remember you can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity or by becoming a member on our YouTube Channel (just click Join).

After Greenland, the rupture in the Transatlantic Alliance was made visible at the WEF conference in Davos.Mark Carney said the quiet bit aloud. But the real implications are beginning to be felt in the deep financial plumbing that undergirds the global economy. Now, a Japanese bond market sell-off is unsettling larger forces. If Japanese interest rate then rocket, they may need to liquify their massive US Treasury bond holdings. Beyond the geopolitics, this is going to turn nasty – economic levels of nasty. We'll be exploring the full low road prospectus in this bumper-length members-only show. This is our monthly paywalled episode. To get it, simply go to Patreon, type in Multipolarity, and sign up - you can cancel any time.

In 1991, the philosopher Jean Baudrillard published a series of essays in Libération and The Guardian entitled The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. Baudrillard's argument was effectively twofold. Firstly, since the American military overwhelmed the Iraqi army so easily and barely sustained casualties, what took place for the West was not really a war per se.Secondly, the new medium of cable news television meant that viewers in the United States were able to watch the war unfold in real time, albeit through a lens of carefully curated propaganda. Viewers were told that they were being given real-time insight into war, but in reality, they were being fed a simulation of war that was, in many ways, more fictional than they would receive from high quality war fiction.Our guest today, Anon writer and Substack Amerikanets has written a new essay in this genre entitled Virtual War Simulated Conflict in the Trump era (https://www.amerikanets.com/)In the essay, Amerikanets described the same experience on the morning after the capture of Venezuelan president; a feeling of unreality. The initial images and news stories available that morning suggested something like a major American military strike on a capital city. But as the smoke cleared and time went on, it became increasingly evident that all was not what seemed.The war simulation machine appears to have now reached its nadir, but it has not resulted in a unified propaganda net where everyone unquestioningly accepts the American narrative of global conflict.Rather, it has created an extremely fragmented reality where no one is really sure what is going on. And as Amerikanet's essay shows, the more you actually understand what happened, the greater the looming sense of unreality becomes.Remember you can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity or by becoming a member on our YouTube Channel (just click Join).

Reza Pahlavi is packing his toothbrush again. As protests grow in Iran, the exiled Crown Prince has been popping up for media appearances, from his home in the Maryland suburbs near DC.As we enter yet another cycle of Persian proto-revolution, we're saying he shouldn't count those air miles just yet.Meanwhile, Donald Trump says that Greenland's defences are two dogs and a sled. Handy, because America has three dogs and two sleds.The Danes have been humiliated already – but can anything useful still come from the biggest gorilla in the room turning on his kin? We'll be watching, as Nato slides into the mid-Atlantic.Finally, when Jerome Powell is putting out hostage-style video statements, you may have squeezed the Fed too hard. Or have you? Whatever the details of the present spat, is there still a place for independent central banking in the Western model?Remember you can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity or by becoming a member on our YouTube Channel (just click Join).

They got the Ace of Spades.The annual dictator kidnapping season got underway in fine style this week as the US bagged a big one, 1.9 meter Nicolás Maduro.But while the President and his exposer were taking a tour of the Gulf of America by Black Hawk, back on Planet Earth the geopolitical plates were shifting as never before.In 2026, it looks like we're about to answer the greatest question of them all.Can you just do things?We might not like the answer.Expanding on that thought, do you know the old joke about the economist, how he refused to pick up the $20 bill lying on the ground?He assumed it was an illusion because if it had been real, in an efficient market, somebody would've already picked it up.The young bucks at the State Department think they've found a way to hot wire the great game.We're asking whether there is such a thing as an efficient market in geopolitics?Remember you can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity or by becoming a member on our YouTube Channel (just click Join).

And to all a good night.Need a last minute gift? Or want to treat yourself to something you actually want?You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity or by becoming a member on our YouTube Channel (just click Join).

Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.

Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.

Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.

Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.

Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.

Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.

Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.

Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.

Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.

Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.

Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.

Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.

Every day until Christmas, Philip and Andrew open a window, revealing an object that speaks to the geopolitical year that was.

The Special Relationship: from Britain defaulting on its loans in the 1930s, to Suez, to Falklands, to the War on Terror, to Trump patronising Starmer at the recent Israel-Gaza peace summit, the precise specialness of this relationship has long been in dispute - whether the political classes acknowledge it or not. There was of course Lend-Lease and the small matter of two World Wars, but Britain's post-war status, as junior partner in the American Empire has meant it has profited, but as the world pivots, it is now exposed. Philip Pilkington has been watching the recent wire-tap scandal with Steve Witkoff and Russian official Yuri Ushakov with interest. There is only one country with the capabilities to pull off that kind of intelligence breach, he suggests. And as a result of this and much else, that country may soon find itself off the special list. So what then? What is Britain's destiny if it can't eat at America's table? And how will America re-make itself in a world where it treats its historic allies so lightly? And what will that mean in turn for the wider Western alliance? This week, our duo go in search of the long story of the Special Relationship - but only for Patrons. Pay us $5 $5 or €5 a month by searching Patreon.com for Multipolarity, and you too can understand why the good ship Anglo is going down down down to Davey Jones' Locker. https://www.patreon.com/multipolarity

The common story of modern China's development is that it has two ages: Mao, and reform. The truth is there are at least six internally coherent economic eras within the country's journey from basket case to superpower. Each with their own rules and obsessions. That's certainly the view of Philip Pilkington, who has been crunching the deep data on the Chinese economy, in a new paper for Eurasia Magazine. This week, in an hour long special, Andrew Collingwood quizzes him on the particularities of these periods: from the black-and-white-cats of Deng, to the red-in-tooth-and-claw market mercantilism of Hu Jintao, up to Xi's property sinking funds and robot army. As Philip argues, most US Republicans still imagine that the central danger of China is that it trades unfairly - in truth, the country has moved on from that point on the global value chain.Remember you can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity or by becoming a member on our YouTube Channel (just click Join).

Would every company be affected if the AI bubble were to burst? That's what Sundar Pichai, the head of Google's parent firm Alphabet reckons.The facts are startling, with the crypto market shedding more than $1tn in six weeks amid fears that the bubble may just go pop. With bitcoin price at its lowest level since April and the FTSE 100 falling, the guys at the top still say they absolutely do NOT think there'll be a burst. That normally goes well right?In UK News, Philip has started somewhat of an X meltdown. He reported that British abortion rates as a % of pregnancies are exploding in spite of recent innovations in contraception. Warning that this a major signal that something is deeply wrong in the economy. Is Britain heading to an almighty demographic crash-out, leading to an immigration boom?Meanwhile in Mexico, after thousands of demonstrators marched in the capital on Saturday to protest against violent crime President Sheinbaum has again dismissed Trump's threat of sending in US troops. Sheinbaum said the marches, which also took place in other cities, had been funded by right-wing politicians who oppose her government. Could the US be trying to encourage a colour revolution? While Trump continues to keep eyes on his armada in the southern Caribbean, close to Venezuela, who's to say? And would it even work?Still hungry for more? Philip sat down to converse with Jacques Sapir, a leading expert on the Russian economy, and part of the Institute of Economic War in Paris, to chat all things Russia, for the Danube Institute. Thoroughly recommended, you can watch here: https://youtu.be/5raqAVEOWXURemember you can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity or by becoming a member on our YouTube Channel (just click Join).

Multipolarity Dialogues is a series of interviews that scan the geopolitical horizon. We talk to some of the sharpest analysts, thinkers, and experts about how they see the world beyond the visible edge of the geopolitical now.The Middle East is as violent and fractious as ever. Now the questions that arise from that violence appear more important than ever. Israel seems to want to end the chaos in a way that provides it with military dominance over the region and some semblance of peace. But can it achieve this or even survive for much longer? Given the scale of enmity it faces in the region and the recent shifts in US domestic politics. What of Egypt, which has been since the Second World War, the dominant military power within the region? And are we seeing the reemergence of Turkey to its traditional place as regional hegemon? Well, to answer these questions we have Firas Modad joining us.Firas is a Druze Lebanese convert to Catholicism, who now lives and works in the UK. As founder and principle of Modad Geopolitics, a consultancy which provides commercially relevant analysis of the effect of geopolitical change on specific regions and industry sectors. Firas for some years now, has been a mainstay geopolitical commentator on the podcast circuit and indeed hosts his own podcast, Realpolitik, within the burgeoning Lotus Eaters ecosystem.

This week, the Lads are taking the sword to Trump's big deal with China. The South Korean talks were heralded by both sides as a breakthrough. They reached agreements on US soybean exports, the supply of rare earth minerals, and the materials used in production of the drug fentanyl. They managed to resolve the Nexperia crisis by means of a simple volte face. But in an era where trade deals tend to come and go, Andrew and Philip are picking this one out as significant. A moment where the Trumpists have had to bend the knee to the rising power, and thereby, set out the trajectory of the next decade. Is this The Sorpaso? To listen in full to this hour long special, you'll need to go to Patreon, and pay Andrew and Philip 5 £ $ €. Just google Patreon + Multipolarity.

This week: Halloween Fright Night on Multipolarity. We're taking various geopolitical doomsday scenarios, and running through how they would play out, in full ghoulish detail. From Britain disintegrating, to America crashing the global economy, to Forever War on the Eastern Front. And stay tuned for an extra special guest… The Headless Norseman himself, Malcom Kyeyune. Remember you can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity or by becoming a member on our YouTube Channel (just click Join).

This week: two audio essays.Peace is coming to Budapest… whether you believe it or not. So says Philip Pilkington, our man on the ground. The show may be paused, but that doesn't change the fundamentals: Trump and Putin need a meeting; they need a venue; the Russian President can't be arrested on sight. And Hungary's nous in positioning itself as a true neutral makes it the ideal venue. He talks through the implications of the next phase of bargaining. Meanwhile, from the front pages to the middle of the paper: Andrew Collingwood says that we're missing a really big story on Nexperia. The Dutch chip maker is now owned by the Chinese, and has become a resource allocation geopolitical football of late. Volkswagen has warned of temporary production outages citing China's export restrictions on semiconductors made by Nexperia.In response, the Dutch government has intervened to take control of Nexperia's governance under national security laws. He warns that Europe could be sawing off the branch it sits on.  If they steal Russian sovereign reserves – and at the same time go around stealing Chinese businesses is Europe even investible anymore, is using the Euro and sterling even possible anymore for third countries?Remember you can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity or by becoming a member on our YouTube Channel (just click Join).

About a month ago, the foreign affairs and geopoltical media was abuzz with talk about the Victory Day military parade in Beijing. What had shocked was that, unlike the standard communist bloc military parades, with their thousands of Soviet-style tanks and armoured personnel carriers and well trained goose-steppers, this one showcased weaponry that could have come from a science fiction film: mobile, directed energy laser weapons; hypersonic glide vehicles; futuristic looking, fighter jet sized, loyal wingmen stealth drones; robot wolves; space defence systems.But was it real, or just a Potemkin arsenal driving past the Forbidden City? And if they were real, what do these things actually do? What do they mean for the balance of power in the western pacific? And, finally, as China climbs at breakneck speed up the military tech ladder, what does it mean for Washington's efforts to hold its defensive perimeter at the first Island Chain?Anybody interested in China's military tech, and especially its military aviation, will know TP Huang, an invaluable provider of detailed analysis on Beijing's ever greater military arsenal, and China's Beijing's technological progress more generally. He joins us for a special interview with Andrew. Multipolarity dialogues is a series of interview that scan the geopolitical horizon. We talk to some of the sharpest analysts, thinkers and experts about how they see the world beyond the visible edge of the geopolitical now.Remember you can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity or by becoming a member on our YouTube Channel.

If you're an enterprising nine year old looking to top up your pocket money, get yourself a bar of bullion. Gold is up to $4000 an ounce for the first time ever – while the dollar is down ten per cent on the year. The biggest drop since, well, since the gold window closed in 1971. Dedollarisation will always mean something-else-isation — this week's rally seems to be the latest shake out. Between 2021 and 2027 the EU budget for NGOs was around €1.5bn. The new EU budget proposal is advocating increasing that 600%. While America now thinks that USAID is outdated political technology, the EU is trying to buy the dip. Finally, we'll have an update on three countries teetering on the brink: France, The Philippines and Georgia. Could the third world quasi-dictatorial basket case on that list actually topple over? And what about the Philippines? You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Welcome to Multipolarity Dialogues – a series of interview that scan the geopolitical horizon. We talk to some of the sharpest analysts, thinkers and experts about how they see the world beyond the visible edge of the geopolitical now.On this episode: Anusar Farooqui. Like the public intellectual equivalent of a DC comics superhero, Anusar lives a double life. By day he's a man who wrote his PhD research on the geometric noise arising from black hole rotation, and went on to found Systematic Portfolios, the New York hedge fund he currently leads as CEO. By night, he is Policy Tensor the writer of a highly regarded Substack that focuses on international relations, grand strategy and economics. Policy Tensor was one of the few analysts to argue in 2022 that the Russian economy was far stronger than commonly believed – in other words, that sanctions would fail.He joins Multipolarity with another warning – about an even greater danger, arguing that the United States might be preparing for the wrong war against China.We will be looking at the big picture strategic position between the US and China – the Thucydides Trap – and why Xi Jinping might take an entirely different route to win back Taiwan.

Modern Monetary Theory. Magical Money Tree. Whichever name you know it by, everywhere, these days, the intellectual salons hum with people trying to say that they've invented that most terrifying of things: a new paradigm. That they have the economic equivalent of Einsteinian Relativity. These people profess that debt is no issue. That a country that prints its own currency can't go broke. And rather, that by a canny toe-heel on the brakes, countries can juice their economies without slamming into a wall. This week, after talking around the topic on any number of previous episodes, we're tackling MMT head-on, in an hour long special edition. Andy Collingwood is grilling Philip Pilkington, who claims to have been there at the birth of modern monetary theory in 2013 — and asking him whether there is much more here than a placenta, some hair and three teeth. The answer, it transpires, is yes and no. MMT does indeed represent a new vein of insight. But that insight is only partial. Misapplied, it is as catastrophic to a monetary system as liquid Robert Mugabe. So join us, on a journey, to a magical money tree not so far away…You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

This week, it's the sensual adventure in Geopolitical ASMR you've all been waiting for.Our two men talking to themselves on their mobile phones in separate locations. With Philip Pilkington presently locked in a hotel room in China, it seems Andrew is penning him Sleepless in Seattle-style voice notes from Northumberland. Dynamic. Digital. Dangerous. Disestablishmentarian.How much of this you can handle is up to you? Two audio essays, half a world away. Later, Phillip Pilkington talks about how much he hates Javier Milei and how hard you should short your pesos.But first Andy Collingwood talking about a nuclear umbrella and how it could be flopped out right in the middle of a Persian Gulf. This is geopolitics, as you've never heard it before.You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Multipolarity Dialogues is a new series of interviews that scan the geopolitical horizon. We'll be talking to some of the sharpest analysts, thinkers, experts, about how they see the world beyond the visible edge of the geopolitical now. This week: Carlos Roa is the Director of Research at the Washington DC Danube Institute. He was formerly the executive editor of National Interest magazine. Last time on the show – an episode well worth seeking out – he offered us a DC Rake's Progress, sketching the shape of the technocrat class who run Washington, from first infant mewling as a Pentagon intern, to final wrinkled Cruise strike on a Middle Eastern country. This time, he's got his eyes on something more global. The New Golden Road – and its rivals. There is the Silk Road, there is the Belt-and Road, but there is also a third way to move goods from East to West overland. It is this that Roa has been studying in his recent paper, also titled The New Golden Road. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, quietly unveiled at a G20 summit in 2023, is designed to link India with Europe via the Arabian Peninsula, stitching together ports, railways, energy pipelines, and digital cables. In this episode Andrew Collingwood talks to Carlos about the deep mechanics, the economics, and the distortions of geopolitical gravity that this grand new interconnector will bring.You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Recently, Philip Pilkington and David Dusenbury published a couple of papers and an article on the long story of China's intellectual history with the West. A story that extends beyond Marco Polo, and has far more breadth and interchange in pre-modern times than most would suspect. David Dusenbury is an Associate Professor of Humanities at the University of Florida, author of three well-regarded books of religious history, and a frequent writer and thinker on the history of ideas. Last month, our duo sat down to comb over what they'd learned in the project for the Danube Culture podcast. We're bringing you their exchange as a bonus this week.

Friend of the Pod Malcom Kyeyune is back, and he's got that late empire feeling. After the Chinese Military staged an extraordinary parade in Beijing, Washington is worried. The top dog question has resurfaced. In the same week, Elbridge Colby released a new strategic document effectively telling Washington it needs to be far more selective in military affairs. After they spent a quarter of their entire interceptor missile stocks shoring up Israel, and with the Abrams tanks proving ineffectively heavy in Ukraine, US procurement is looking shoddy in a way it never has before. No wonder Colby increasingly senses the Taiwan question must be gently settled. As Malcom puts it: “Times were when the US could just pick up a small country and smack it against a wall in order to show who's boss.” Are recent manoeuvres off the Venezuelan coast a last gasp of smack-it-against-the-wall hegemonic diplomacy?In this typically ranging hour long special, The Lads look into the abyss called Kyeyune – and he stares back. You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Narendra Modi. In Shanghai. In the back of a car. With Vladimir Putin. Positively glowing. The tweets the Indians sent out at the Shanghai Co-Operation Organisation were the equivalent of a taken for granted girlfriend openly flirting with the jocks at the big keg party. The key question: is this obvious piece of signalling going to be stronger than the thick skulls of the lugs in Washington? Meanwhile, in Venezuela, US destroyers are patrolling the coastline. Ostensibly to stop cartel shipments. Are they about to make a Noriega of Maduro? Finally, in Britain, the bond yield has hit a thirty year high. At the same time, France can't pass a budget, and has 114% debt to GDP. What's going to happen when two of Europe's big three economies both try to squeeze through the door of the IMF at the same time? All this and more in an hour of super soaraway subscriber special. That's right – it's that time of the month. Time to put down five Dollars, Pounds, Euros to get to eavesdrop with your fellow subscribers in the secret Multipolarity green room. Go to patreon.com/multipolarity. Slap down your cash. And get backstage, where the real action is.

As they say in the Economist: "Serbia is at a crossroads..." Anti-corruption protests after the collapse of the station roof in Novi Sad have not gone away, now many months after the event. The country's leader, President Vučić, is under pressure as never before, after 13 years in power. He has offered 'televised dialogues': his opponents have declined. The standoff continues. Meanwhile, in the tiny breakaway relic of the Bosnian War, Republika Srpska, the crossroads has come to a fork.In February 2025, the President of the RS region of Bosnia, Milorad Dodik, was stripped of his office, for planning to hold an independence referendum to break away from Bosnia. He was handed a one-year prison sentence plus a six-year political ban. Christian Schmidt, Bosnia's High Representative, froze budgetary support for RS ruling parties after attempts to arrest Dodik were thwarted by Republika Srpska police. Two concurrent crises, oddly twinned: as we all know, when Serbia goes off, the world needs to stand well back. Miša Đurković is a Principal Research Fellow and Director at the Institute of European Studies in Belgrade. This week, he joins us to unpack the dense politics of this geopolitical pocket rocket.